


I Am The One Who Fidgets

by anxietyissue



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:10:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxietyissue/pseuds/anxietyissue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of the hit AMC TV series "Breaking Bad" with brand new characters, including Kenneth Goldsmith, Jonathan Franzen, Sonic the Hedgehog & Matsuo Basho.</p>
<p>Drunkenly written fanfiction for entertainment purposes only.</p>
<p>By @anxietyissue (https://twitter.com/anxietyissue).</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am The One Who Fidgets

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Man Without Honor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374506) by [DoctorSnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorSnow/pseuds/DoctorSnow). 



### Chapter 1

Kenneth Goldsmith woke up in the middle of the night, coughing profusely.

Sonic The Hedgehog stirred next to him. “Kenneth, what time is it?”

Kenneth looked at the clock. “It’s half past three, babes. Sorry I woke you.”

“It’s all right,” Sonic mumbled. “Remember to take your pills in the morning.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Kenneth Goldsmith said. He reached for his round glasses on his nightstand and scrambled out of bed. “I can’t believe I have fucking lung cancer,” Kenneth Goldsmith thought.

He walked out to the porch. The cool night breeze blew into his beard and How To Train Your Dragon boxer-briefs. He gazed at his unremarkable penis. “My unremarkable penis,” Kenneth Goldsmith thought. 

This was going to be another sleepless night.

*******

Kenneth Goldsmith had been teaching a course called Wasting Time on The Internet at a local university for almost twenty years now. Despite his qualifications, superior intellect, dashing sense of style and general awesomeness, he barely made enough to make ends meet. Since Sonic the Hedgehog was too busy fighting Dr. Robotnik to get a job and help him provide for the family, he was forced to write books and do public speeches to supplement his income. To write books faster, he had devised something called Uncreative Writing, a sort of catch-all philosophy that allowed him to repurpose other people’s texts into a new-ish package.

After his class ended, Kenneth Goldsmith texted his brother-in-law, a gruff Justice League member named Batman who, on several occasions, had offered to take Kenneth Goldsmith on a ride-along to one of his drug raids. They met an hour later, and drove around town in Batman’s pick up truck. Kenneth Goldsmith was surprised to learn that the drug lab they would be busting was located in a wealthy neighborhood in the suburbs, one that wasn’t even that far from the wealthy neighborhood in which he resided.

“I am as shocked as you are,” Batman said. “Normally, drug labs aren’t located in fancy neighborhoods. Maybe that’s why they chose this site. To avoid detection.”

Batman killed the engine as the truck pulled up by the side of the road.

“Stay here, Kenneth. I’ll be in and out before you know it.”

The raid was quick. Kenneth saw Batman jump-kick the front door, firing Batarangs and yelling, “FREEZE.” Less than ten minutes later, Batman returned, waving at Kenneth Goldsmith to come.

Kenneth Goldsmith walked hesitantly towards the front door. In the entrance hall, he removed his straw hat and placed it on a coat rack, which was the gentlemanly thing to do when entering someone’s home.

“Watch it!” a voice coming from behind the coat rack said.

Kenneth Goldsmith jumped backwards in surprise. A man who had been hiding emerged from behind the coat rack, covered in dust.

“Franzen?!?” Kenneth Goldsmith said, recognizing the man.

“Fuck,” Jonathan Franzen said before fleeing, leaving Kenneth Goldsmith befuddled.

That night, Kenneth Goldsmith couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about Jonathan Franzen, a novelist he knew from literary circles. While Kenneth Goldsmith saw the internet as an infinite source of content to repurpose into new, increasingly pointless books, Jonathan Franzen was suspicious of the internet, which he saw as totalitarian, especially Twitter, for some reason.

Was Jonathan Franzen really running a meth lab on the side, Kenneth Goldsmith wondered? Why would a Great American Novelist like Jonathan Franzen do such a thing

Suddenly, Kenneth Goldsmith heard a noise coming from outside. Someone was throwing small rocks at his bedroom window. Intrigued, Kenneth Goldsmith got up, put on his golf shoes and then assembled another one of his outlandish outfits, which took about forty minutes. He walked down the stairs and out the door.

“Kenneth?” a voice said. Kenneth Goldsmith turned around and saw that Jonathan Franzen was crouched behind a trash can. 

“How did you find me?” Kenneth Goldsmith said.

Jonathan Franzen chuckled derisively. “You don’t remember? Four years ago, you shit-talked my writing in The New Yorker. I sat out here for two days, hoping to make you reconsider your review. You seriously don’t remember?”

“No,” Kenneth Goldsmith said. “Instead of coming all the way here, you could just have emailed me.”

“I don’t know what an email is,” said Jonathan Franzen before clapping liked a dolphin.

“Why are you here?” Kenneth Goldsmith said, coughing heavily. His doctor had advised him to start chemotherapy immediately, but that would mean having to let everyone know about his condition, which he didn’t want to do, because of ego or pride or something. And it wasn’t as if he could afford the treatment anyway.

“Shit,” Jonathan Franzen said. “Are you okay?”

“I am fine,” Kenneth Goldsmith said. “I always cough up blood like this. It’s what cool people do. Just tell me why you’re here.”

“Did you tell the cops that you saw me?” said Jonathan Franzen.

“If I had told them, you wouldn’t be here,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “Frankly, I never thought you were any good, Franzen, but selling crystal meth? That’s a new low.”

“It started as research for a new novel,” said Jonathan Franzen. “I wanted to understand today’s youth better, so I thought I would meet more millennials if I manufactured and sold drugs. According to my research, 100% of millenials are addicted to meth and shake violently when you stop providing them with meth. It’s fascinating. What a world we live in.”

“Yeah,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. He briefly felt tempted to do a cartwheel on the front lawn, thinking it would impress Jonathan Franzen. He was getting tired of listening to Jonathan Franzen. He wanted attention again.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if you saw how much money I make, though,” Franzen added. “Don’t you hate being a teacher? How it takes so much energy out of you? With crystal meth, you don’t need a job. You write during the day and you sell crystal meth at night. It’s perfect.”

“It’s not perfect. You almost got busted by my brother-in-law,” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

“It’s almost perfect,” said Jonathan Franzen. 

“You need to be smarter,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “Listen, I have a great idea. Let’s become partners. You take care of the meth, and I’ll handle the business side of things. We can use the power of Uncreative Writing and Conceptual Poetry to sell meth.”

It took Jonathan Franzen a few seconds to register what Kenneth Goldsmith had just said. “You? You want to cook crystal? With me?” said Franzen, laughing.

“It’s either that, or I turn you in,” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

Jonathan Franzen was silent for a while. “You know, you’re very a different person compared to your New Yorker profile.”

  


### Chapter 2

“I see,” said Kenneth Goldsmith, examining the new batch of meth, which was translucent, like the case of his iPad Mini. Where had Jonathan Franzen learned to make something like this? Were all Great American Novelists, like Charles Dickens or Ernest Hemingway, also secretly able to cook meth?

“What do you mean, ‘I see’?’” said Jonathan Franzen.

“Your crystal is good, real good, but I think we can do better,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “I want us to move in a new direction. The world is full of meth already. Maybe we don’t need to add any more. What we should do instead is sell conceptual crystal meth. Meth that technically doesn’t even need to be consumed, because the concept itself is enough to get people high. Do you follow me?”

“My god, Kenneth,” said Jonathan Franzen. “It’s genius. You’re a genius.”

“Well, duh,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. He looked at his Apple Watch. “Damn it. I have to go.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Jonathan Franzen said. “You’re not going to help me clean up?”

“Don’t be a girl, Johnny,” said Kenneth Goldsmith while looking at himself in the mirror, readjusting his beige scarf.

“Wait, you haven’t told me yet,” said Franzen.

Kenneth Goldmisth turned to look at him. “Told you what?”

“Why are you doing this? I know why I am doing this, because I want to live like a poor person who just happens to have an insane amount of money, but I don’t get what’s in it for you. A straight-ass clown like you, suddenly making crystal. Something’s not right. Why? Why risk everything?”

Kenneth Goldsmith was silent for a few seconds.

“Good night, Franzen,” he said, kissing Jonathan Franzen on the forehead like a newborn.

*******

The house was shrouded in darkness. After unbuckling his seatbelt, Kenneth Goldsmith looked at his phone and saw that he had several missed calls from Sonic the Hedgehog. It was way past his bedtime.

In the entranceway, he fumbled with his keys, but Sonic the Hedgehog opened the front door abruptly before he could find the right one.

“Hi, honey,” said Kenneth Goldsmith hesitantly.

“Where the hell were you?” said Sonic the Hedgehog.

Kenneth Goldsmith floundered, looking for words. He felt alone, adrift and naked in the sea that was language.

“A poetry reading,” he finally said. “Yes. That’s my alibi. I was at a poetry reading.”

“Don’t lie to me, Kenneth,” Sonic said. “I know you hate going to other people’s readings. You don’t like it when other people get attention.”

Sonic the Hedgehog knew him so well. Though her voice was soft, he couldn’t help but notice a hint of pain and anger lying underneath. Kenneth Goldsmith was perceptive in that way. Human emotions were no match for him. 

“I am not lying,” said Kenneth Goldsmith, “I am just repurposing the truth.”

“Just tell me, Kenneth. Where were you?”

For once in his life, Kenneth Goldsmith couldn’t think of anything to say. He didn’t want to lie to Sonic the Hedgehog.

“I was cooking crystal meth with Jonathan Franzen,” said Kenneth Goldsmith, his voice quivering like a candle flame.

“Do you expect me to buy that, Kenneth?” Sonic shouted. “You’re such a dipshit.”

Sonic the Hedgehog slammed the door in his face.

Disconsolate, Kenneth Goldsmith made a bed for himself in the trunk of his car, using his extravagant fur coat as a makeshift pillow. As he settled down for the night, he thought about Sonic the Hedgehog. Why did she have to question him? He was the genius, not her. Shouldn’t she have learned to let him do whatever he wants by now?

*******

“KAMEHAMEHA!” yelled Gohan before firing an energy blast into the sky. Kenneth Goldsmith woke up. It was a cloudy morning and Gohan was practicing his battle skills on the front lawn. Kenneth Goldsmith’s son was half-human, half-Saiyan.

“Hi son,” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

“I have coffee for you,” Gohan said, a faint smile on his lips. “Then I am off to find the legendary Dragonballs with Bulma. If we find all seven Dragonballs, we can summon the dragon and wish for you to be cured of lung cancer.”

“You do that, son,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “You do that.”

Reaching for the cup of coffee, Kenneth Goldsmith took a sip. He would need it to get through what was certain to be a pitiful day.

“How is your mother?” Kenneth Goldsmith said.

Gohan shrugged. “Mom is still mad at you, but she’ll get over it. I mean, she did ask me to bring you coffee. That has to be a good sign.”

Kenneth Goldsmith chuckled. “Oh yeah. I am definitely getting some tonight.”

  


### Chapter 3

Jonathan Franzen snapped out of a drug-induced haze. It was a day later and the house was still a mess. “Thank god my wife is out of town,” Jonathan Franzen thought. Jonathan Franzen was married to an evil feminist who made him pee with the toilet seat down. He didn’t like it.

Smoking meth was all Jonathan Franzen had done since Kenneth Goldsmith had left. “Kenneth is going to yell at me so bad,” Jonathan Franzen thought. “I need to make some money to show him I am not a complete wasteoid.”

Jonathan Franzen wanted to contact a big-shot dealer he knew named Matsuo Basho and sell him his supply of meth. He would have to tread carefully, as the police was probably looking for someone like him. Another problem was that he didn’t have much meth left, as he had already smoked most of the new batch himself.

Fumbling, he pulled out a few small plastic bags and started filling them with the remaining shards. He thought about what Kenneth Goldsmith had said, about selling “Conceptual Meth” instead of regular meth. What did that even mean? Kenneth Goldsmith had only given him one example: Instead of making their own meth, they would go around town, purchase massive amounts of meth from small, low-level dealers and merge everything into a single package. Then they would re-sell the new package for profit to a more important dealer by marketing it as art, something like “an entire day’s worth of meth in an average American city.”

“The concept would be just as powerful as the meth, if not more,” Kenneth Goldsmith had explained.

“All right, asshole,” Jonathan Franzen thought. “Let’s try to sell your shit instead of mine. I hope it’s worth the risk.”

*******

On the way to a distant mountain range where another Dragonball was supposed to be located, Gohan though about how his dad had been acting weird lately. He wasn’t sure why his parents had gotten into a big fight the night before. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” Gohan thought. “They never tell me anything.”

“Gohan, do you think you could take the wheel for a few minutes?” said Bulma, who was piloting her flying ship. “I need to go to the bathroom to freshen up.”

“Sure,” said Gohan. When Bulma came back, her cheeks were sunken and she looked loopy all of a sudden. Gohan saw a small plastic bag filled with shiny white granules fall out of her pocket. “Are those drugs?” Gohan thought. It looked like what he imagined crystal meth looked like. 

Sneakily, he grabbed the bag without telling her and decided to put it aside for now.

Two hours later, Bulma and Gohan split up to look for the missing Dragonball. While searching, Gohan ran into his mentor, the green alien Piccolo, and decided to show him the bag.

“Where did you get this?” Piccolo asked him, his eyes glaring reproachfully at Gohan.

“In Bulma’s ship,” said Gohan. “It’s hers.”

“You expect me to believe this?” Piccolo said. His face darkened. He tossed the plastic bag into the air and destroyed it with a single, precise energy blast. “I better not find out you’ve been using meth.”

“Wow,” said Gohan. “Is meth really that dangerous?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know what it does,” said Piccolo before leaving. Gohan had anticipated that Piccolo would react like this, and so had transferred half of the content of Bulma’s bag into a second bag. He wanted to know why meth was so dangerous, and decided there and then that he would smoke meth for the first time tonight.

  


### Chapter 4

At the hospital, Kenneth Goldsmith waited in the hallway. Gohan was out of danger, the doctors had said, but the last few days had left Kenneth Goldsmith shell-shocked. “I can’t believe my half-Saiyan son is addicted to meth and I have lung cancer,” Kenneth Goldsmith thought. “Can things possibly get any worse for Kenneth Goldsmith?” Then it dawned on him that maybe the meth Gohan had used had come from Jonathan Franzen.

Kenneth Goldsmith’s important thoughts were interrupted by a doctor telling him Gohan was awake. Kenneth Goldsmith entered the room and walked towards the bed.

Gohan turned to look at him, giving him a weak smile.

“Hi son,” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

A tear fell from Gohan’s eye. “I’m sorry, dad,” Gohan said.

“Just rest for now, son,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “There will be plenty of time to scream at you when you’re better.”

“Kenneth,” said Jonathan Franzen, barging into the room. “I came as soon as I heard.”

“What are you doing here???” said Kenneth Goldsmith with great fury. He had specifically told Jonathan Franzen that they should not be seen in public together. He grabbed Franzen by the arm of his red cardigan and led him to a separate room where they could be alone.

“I just wanted to make sure that Gohan was okay,” said Jonathan Franzen. “Also, I need to tell you something: It’s working.”

“What’s working?” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

“The conceptual meth,” said Franzen. “It’s the shizzle. People are going bananas for it. We’re going to be rich. We can finally buy statues of ourselves.”

“Listen to you,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “I can’t believe you sold meth to my half-Saiyan son. You sick bastard.”

“What?” said Jonathan Franzen. “No! I would never do that.”

Kenneth Goldsmith exited the room. When he returned to Gohan’s bedside, Batman was questioning him. 

“Gohan,” Batman said. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I need you to describe the meth to me. Can you tell me anything about its texture, its color, anything like that?”

“The meth itself was normal,” said Gohan. “What was strange about it was the concept that came with the meth.”

“Oh my god,” said Batman. “Conceptual meth. I’ve never heard of anything like this. I can’t see a low-level thug or even a chemist coming up with something like this. We might have a new player on the scene, maybe an artist or something. Kenneth, you’re an artist, what do you think of this?”

“An artist wouldn’t do something like this,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “Artists are the antennas of the human race. The antennas! And I am not just repeating this quote because it gives me a poetic sense of self-importance. I truly believe this.”

“Well, what’s your theory, then?” said Batman.

“I don’t know. I mean, I always say that context is the new content, but I never thought that someone would use this power in such a twisted, evil way,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. 

He began to feel light-headed. This was not what he had in mind when he decided to get into the meth business. He didn’t want his family to suffer from his actions. It was getting too dangerous. He would have to cut his losses and tie up loose ends, which would mean getting rid of Franzen.

*******

“Open up Franzen,” yelled Kenneth Goldsmith, banging loudly on the front door. “I know you’re in there.”

His plan was to eliminate Franzen, then maybe use Hydrofluoric acid to get rid of the body, though he wasn’t sure he would be able to go through with it. Much to his dismay, Kenneth Goldmisth had, in their short time working together, grown to like, maybe even respect Jonathan Franzen. He wanted to take him under his wing, teach him the ways of Conceptual Poetry and Uncreative Writing.

“What?” said Jonathan Franzen, answering the door and looking annoyed, though also out of it a little.

“Johnny, have you been smoking meth?” said Kenneth Goldsmith. He pushed Jonathan Franzen aside and walked in.

“No,” said Jonathan Franzen. “Well, maybe a little. It’s really good shit.”

“We’re pros, Franzen. We don’t do meth. We just sell it.”

“What are you doing here at this hour?” said Jonathan Franzen. “Wait, do you hear this?”

Jonathan Franzen and Kenneth Goldsmith looked out the window. A car had parked in front of Jonathan Franzen’s house and three heavy set men armed with guns and machetes were coming out. They were accompanying an Asian man.

“Oh shit,” said Jonathan Franzen. “It’s Basho.”

“Who?” said Kenneth Goldsmith.

“The dealer. He wants more conceptual meth. Do you have more conceptual meth?”

“Well, no,” said Kenneth Goldsmith.” It takes time and preparation to create conceptual meth. And I can’t meet Basho. I don’t want him to know my true identity. I need a new apparatus.”

While Jonathan Franzen was scrambling, Kenneth Goldsmith looked for a new costume to conceal his identity. He exchanged his fur coat and straw hat for a black hat and a brown jacket he found in the entrance closet. “That will do,” Kenneth Goldsmith thought.

“Mr. Basho,” said Jonathan Franzen. “Always nice to see you.”

“Mr. Basho wants 40 pounds of conceptual meth now,” said one of Basho’s henchmen. “He’s prepared to pay you 100,000$ up front.”

“Woah, really?” said Jonathan Franzen, his jaw dropping on the floor.

“That’s certainly a generous offer,” said Kenneth Goldsmith, “but we can’t deliver 40 pounds of conceptual meth with no advance warning. If you give us a week, we can make it happen.”

“Excuse me, who are you?” said the henchman.

“I am his business partner,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. 

Matsuo Basho whispered something to his henchman. 

“Mr. Basho is very displeased by this,” the henchman said. “You should know that he does not tolerate failure.”

“Then you should tell Mr. Basho that it is an artist’s right to fail, that artists have the right to fail more than anyone else,” said Kenneth Goldsmith angrily, looking at Matsuo Basho directly.

Matsuo Basho whispered something to his henchman again.

“Mr. Basho would like to know your name,” the henchman said.

“My name,” said Kenneth Goldsmith, “is Fernando Pessoa.”

“Well, Mr. Pessoa, we will see you next week. Have the meth ready. No failure will be tolerated. In the meantime, Matsuo Basho leaves you with this haiku to ponder.”

Matsuo Basho took a deep breath, then spoke out loud for the first time.

“the old pond,  
a frog jumps in,  
fuck the police," he said.

“What does that mean?” said Jonathan Franzen, looking puzzled.

Matsuo Basho turned around and exited Jonathan Franzen’s home, followed closely by his henchmen.

“Gee, that was a close one,” said Jonathan Franzen. “I am going to tell my diary all about this tonight.”

“Shut up, Johnny,” said Kenneth Goldsmith. “We’ve got some conceptual meth to cook.”


End file.
